Seesmic is considered by many to be the most powerful and efficient Twitter client. However, in the past Seesmic has made it clear that it doesn’t wish to restrict itself to Twitter. And rightly so. Although Twitter and Facebook dominates the social networking landscape, there are plenty of other major players. As a logical progression towards their aim of becoming the definitive social networking client, Seesmic has announced that it is acquiring Ping.fm.

Ping.fm is a simple service which can push status updates to several dozen social networks. One of the biggest strengths of Ping.fm is that it allows you to update your status message on the go using SMS, MMS, Instant Message or even e-mail. Seesmic has promised to integrate Ping.fm with all its services. It will also be maintaining and developing the Ping.fm API, which is used by close to hundred applications.

Although the financial details of the deal were not disclosed, Ping.fm co-founders – Adam Duffy and Sean McCullough, will be joining the Seesmic team. The duo will also become shareholders and a part of the Seesmic management.

Ping.fm publishes 200,000 updates every day and has 500,000 registered users. This acquisition will undoubtedly give Seesmic an edge and help Loic Le Meur achieve his target of 1 million updates a day. It will be interesting to observe how competitors like TweetDeck will respond. Since, the Ping.fm API will be maintained; other clients will also have the option of offering Ping.fm integration in the future.

Pallab De is a blogger from India who has a soft spot for anything techie. He loves trying out new software and spends most of his day breaking and fixing his PC. Pallab loves participating in the social web; he has been active in technology forums since he was a teenager and is an active user of both twitter (@indyan) and facebook .